After a time he began as quietly as before.
"I crossed the span. I went down through the top of that building. Blue darkness shrouded me for a moment and I felt the steps twist into a spiral. I wound down and then I was standing high up in I can"t tell you in what, I"ll have to call it a room. We have no images for what is in the pit. A hundred feet below me was the floor. The walls sloped down and out from where I stood in a series of widening crescents. The place was colossal and it was filled with a curious mottled red light. It was like the light inside a green and gold flecked fire opal. I went down to the last step. Far in front of me rose a high, columned altar. Its pillars were carved in monstrous scrolls like mad octopuses with a thousand drunken tentacles; they rested on the backs of shapeless monstrosities carved in crimson stone. The altar front was a gigantic slab of purple covered with carvings.
"I can"t describe these carvings! No human being could the human eye cannot grasp them any more than it can grasp the shapes that haunt the fourth dimension. Only a subtle sense in the back of the brain sensed them vaguely. They were formless things that gave no conscious image, yet pressed into the mind like small hot seals ideas of hate of combats between unthinkable monstrous things victories in a nebulous h.e.l.l of steaming, obscene jungles aspirations and ideals immeasurably loathsome "And as I stood I grew aware of something that lay behind the lip of the altar fifty feet above me. I knew it was there I felt it with every hair and every tiny bit of my skin. Something infinitely malignant, infinitely horrible, infinitely ancient. It lurked, it brooded, it threatened and it was invisible!
"Behind me was a circle of blue light. I ran for it. Something urged me to turn back, to climb the stairs and make away. It was impossible. Repulsion for that unseen Thing raced me onward as though a current had my feet. I pa.s.sed through the circle. I was out on a street that stretched on into dim distance between rows of the carven cylinders.
"Here and there the red trees arose. Between them rolled the stone burrows. And now I could take in the amazing ornamentation that clothed them. They were like the trunks of smooth skinned trees that had fallen and had been clothed with high reaching noxious orchids. Yes those cylinders were like that and more. They should have gone out with the dinosaurs. They were monstrous. They struck the eyes like a blow and they pa.s.sed across the nerves like a rasp. And nowhere was there sight or sound of living thing.
"There were circular openings in the cylinders like the circle in the Temple of the Stairway. I pa.s.sed through one of them. I was in a long, bare vaulted room whose curving sides half closed twenty feet over my head, leaving a wide slit that opened into another vaulted chamber above. There was absolutely nothing in the room save the same mottled reddish light that I had seen in the Temple. I stumbled. I still could see nothing, but there was something on the floor over which I had tripped. I reached down and my hand touched a thing cold and smooth that moved under it I turned and ran out of that place I was filled with a loathing that had in it something of madness I ran on and on blindly wringing my hands weeping with horror "When I came to myself I was still among the stone cylinders and red trees. I tried to retrace my steps; to find the Temple. I was more than afraid. I was like a new loosed soul panic-stricken with the first terrors of h.e.l.l. I could not find the Temple! Then the haze began to thicken and glow; the cylinders to shine more brightly. I knew that it was dusk in the world above and I felt that with dusk my time of peril had come; that the thickening of the haze was the signal for the awakening of whatever things lived in this pit.
"I scrambled up the sides of one of the burrows. I hid behind a twisted nightmare of stone. Perhaps, I thought, there was a chance of remaining hidden until the blue lightened and the peril pa.s.sed. There began to grow around me a murmur. It was everywhere and it grew and grew into a great whispering. I peeped from the side of the stone down into the street. I saw lights pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing. More and more lights they swam out of the circular doorways and they thronged the street. The highest were eight feet above the pave; the lowest perhaps two. They hurried, they sauntered, they bowed, they stopped and whispered and there was nothing under them!"
"Nothing under them!" breathed Anderson.
"No," he went on, "that was the terrible part of it there was nothing under them. Yet certainly the lights were living things. They had consciousness, volition, thought what else I did not know. They were nearly two feet across the largest. Their center was a bright nucleus red, blue, green. This nucleus faded off, gradually, into a misty glow that did not end abruptly. It too seemed to fade off into nothingness but a nothingness that had under it a somethingness. I strained my eyes trying to grasp this body into which the lights merged and which one could only feel was there, but could not see.
"And all at once I grew rigid. Something cold, and thin like a whip, had touched my face. I turned my head. Close behind were three of the lights. They were a pale blue. They looked at me if you can imagine lights that are eyes. Another whiplash gripped my shoulder. Under the closest light came a shrill whispering. I shrieked. Abruptly the murmuring in the street ceased. I dragged my eyes from the pale blue globe that held them and looked out the lights in the streets were rising by myriads to the level of where I stood! There they stopped and peered at me. They crowded and jostled as though they were a crowd of curious people on Broadway. I felt a score of the lashes touch me "When I came to myself I was again in the great Place of the Stairway, lying at the foot of the altar. All was silent. There were no lights only the mottled red glow. I jumped to my feet and ran toward the steps. Something jerked me back to my knees. And then I saw that around my waist had been fastened a yellow ring of metal. From it hung a chain and this chain pa.s.sed up over the lip of the high ledge. I was chained to the altar!
"I reached into my pockets for my knife to cut through the ring. It was not there! I had been stripped of everything except one of the canteens that I had hung around my neck and which I suppose They had thought was part of me. I tried to break the ring. It seemed alive. It writhed in my hands and it drew itself closer around me! I pulled at the chain. It was immovable. There came to me the consciousness of the unseen Thing above the altar. I groveled at the foot of the slab and wept. Think alone in that place of strange light with the brooding ancient Horror above me a monstrous Thing, a Thing unthinkable an unseen Thing that poured forth horror "After awhile I gripped myself. Then I saw beside one of the pillars a yellow bowl filled with a thick white liquid. I drank it. If it killed I did not care. But its taste was pleasant and as I drank my strength came back to me with a rush. Clearly I was not to be starved. The lights, whatever they were, had a conception of human needs.
"And now the reddish mottled gleam began to deepen. Outside arose the humming and through the circle that was the entrance came streaming the globes, They ranged themselves in ranks until they filled the Temple. Their whispering grew into a chant, a cadenced whispering chant that rose and fell, rose and fell, while to its rhythm the globes lifted and sank, lifted and sank.
"All that night the lights came and went and all that night the chant sounded as they rose and fell. At the last I felt myself only an atom of consciousness in a sea of cadenced whispering; an atom that rose and fell with the bowing globes. I tell you that even my heart pulsed in unison with them! The red glow faded, the lights streamed out; the whispering died. I was again alone and I knew that once again day had broken in my own world.
"I slept. When I awoke I found beside the pillar more of the white liquid. I scrutinized the chain that held me to the altar. I began to rub two of the links together. I did this for hours. When the red began to thicken there was a ridge worn in the links. Hope rushed up within me. There was, then, a chance to escape.
"With the thickening the lights came again. All through that night the whispering chant sounded, and the globes rose and fell. The chant seized me. It pulsed through me until every nerve and muscle quivered to it. My lips began to quiver. They strove like a man trying to cry out on a nightmare. And at last they too were whispering the chant of the people of the pit. My body bowed in unison with the lights I was, in movement and sound, one with the nameless things while my soul sank back sick with horror and powerless. While I whispered I saw Them!"
"Saw the lights?" I asked stupidly.
"Saw the Things under the lights," he answered. "Great transparent snail-like bodies dozens of waving tentacles stretching from them round gaping mouths under the luminous seeing globes. They were like the ghosts of inconceivably monstrous slugs! I could see through them. And as I stared, still bowing and whispering, the dawn came and they streamed to and through the entrance. They did not crawl or walk they floated! They floated and were gone!
"I did not sleep. I worked all that day at my chain. By the thickening of the red I had worn it a sixth through. And all that night I whispered and bowed with the pit people, joining in their chant to the Thing that brooded above me!
"Twice again the red thickened and the chant held me then on the morning of the fifth day I broke through the worn links of the chain. I was free! I drank from the bowl of white liquid and poured what was left in my flask. I ran to the Stairway. I rushed up and past that unseen Horror behind the altar ledge and was out upon the Bridge. I raced across the span and up the Stairway.
"Can you think what it is to climb straight up the verge of a cleft-world with h.e.l.l behind you? h.e.l.l was behind me and terror rode me. The city had long been lost in the blue haze before I knew that I could climb no more. My heart beat upon my ears like a sledge. I fell before one of the little caves feeling that here at last was sanctuary. I crept far back within it and waited for the haze to thicken. Almost at once it did so. From far below me came a vast and angry murmur. At the mouth of the rift I saw a light pulse up through the blue; die down and as it dimmed I saw myriads of the globes that are the eyes of the pit people swing downward into the abyss. Again and again the light pulsed and the globes fell. They were hunting me. The whispering grew louder, more insistent.
"There grew in me the dreadful desire to join in the whispering as I had done in the Temple. I bit my lips through and through to still them. All that night the beam shot up through the abyss, the globes swung and the whispering sounded and now I knew the purpose of the caves and of the sculptured figures that still had power to guard them. But what were the people who had carved them? Why had they built their city around the verge and why had they set that Stairway in the pit? What had they been to those Things that dwelt at the bottom and what use had the Things been to them that they should live beside their dwelling place? That there had been some purpose was certain. No work so prodigious as the Stairway would have been undertaken otherwise. But what was the purpose? And why was it that those who had dwelt about the abyss had pa.s.sed away ages gone, and the dwellers in the abyss still lived? I could find no answer nor can I find any now. I have not the shred of a theory.
"Dawn came as I wondered and with it silence. I drank what was left of the liquid in my canteen, crept from the cave and began to climb again. That afternoon my legs gave out. I tore off my shirt, made from it pads for my knees and coverings for my hands. I crawled upward. I crawled up and up. And again I crept into one of the caves and waited until again the blue thickened, the shaft of light shot through it and the whispering came.
"But now there was a new note in the whispering. It was no longer threatening. It called and coaxed. It drew. A new terror gripped me. There had come upon me a mighty desire to leave the cave and go out where the lights swung; to let them do with me as they pleased, carry me where they wished. The desire grew. It gained fresh impulse with every rise of the beam until at last I vibrated with the desire as I had vibrated to the chant in the Temple. My body was a pendulum. Up would go the beam and I would swing toward it! Only my soul kept steady. It held me fast to the floor of the cave; And all that night it fought with my body against the spell of the pit people.
"Dawn came. Again I crept from the cave and faced the Stairway. I could not rise. My hands were torn and bleeding; my knees an agony. I forced myself upward step by step. After a while my hands became numb, the pain left my knees. They deadened. Step by step my will drove my body upward upon them.
"And then a nightmare of crawling up infinite stretches of steps memories of dull horror while hidden within caves with the lights pulsing without and whisperings that called and called me memory of a time when I awoke to find that my body was obeying the call and had carried me half way out between the guardians of the portals while thousands of gleaming globes rested in the blue haze and watched me. Glimpses of bitter fights against sleep and always, always a climb up and up along infinite distances of steps that led from Abaddon to a Paradise of blue sky and open world!
"At last a consciousness of the clear sky close above me, the lip of the pit before me memory of pa.s.sing between the great portals of the pit and of steady withdrawal from it dreams of giant men with strange peaked crowns and veiled faces who pushed me onward and onward and held back Roman Candle globules of light that sought to draw me back to a gulf wherein planets swam between the branches of red trees that had snakes for crowns.
"And then a long, long sleep how long G.o.d alone knows in a cleft of rocks; an awakening to see far in the North the beam still rising and falling, the lights still hunting, the whispering high above me calling.
"Again crawling on dead arms and legs that moved that moved like the Ancient Mariner"s ship without volition of mine, but that carried me from a haunted place. And then your fire and this safety!"
The crawling man smiled at us for a moment. Then swiftly life faded from his face. He slept.
That afternoon we struck camp and carrying the crawling man started back South. For three days we carried him and still he slept. And on the third day, still sleeping, he died. We built a great pile of wood and we burned his body as he had asked. We scattered his ashes about the forest with the ashes of the trees that had consumed him. It must be a great magic indeed that could disentangle those ashes and draw him back in a rushing cloud to the pit he called Accursed. I do not think that even the People of the Pit have such a spell. No.
But we did not return to the five peaks to see.
The h.e.l.l Screen.
Rynosuke Akutagawa.
Translated into English by Morinaka Akira.
Rynosuke Akutagawa (18921927) was a j.a.panese writer active in Taish period j.a.pan and often called the "father of the j.a.panese short story". His name loosely translates to "Son of Dragon", as he was born in the year, month, day, and hour of the Dragon. He published his first short story, " Rashmon", while still a student and wrote over one hundred more in his lifetime. Depression and hallucinations hounded him and he eventually committed suicide at the age of thirty-five. His dying words in his will claimed he felt a "vague uneasiness". The story reprinted here, "The h.e.l.l Screen" (1918) in a new definitive translation, is a masterpiece, with the "weird" always ever a glimmer in the background.
Neither in the past nor in the time to come could one imagine a person comparable to the High Lord of Horikawa. I heard that, before his birth, Dai Itoku-Myo-o1, the King of Magical Science, appeared at his mother"s bedside. From birth, Horikawa was different from the others. Of all the things he ever did, I cannot recall an act that did not deserve our wonderment. To mention an example among many, the structure of his palace how should I define it? Immense? Grandiose? was so astounding as to surpa.s.s the boundaries of our limited imagination. Some went so far as to compare his temperament and conduct to those of the First Emperor of the Ch"in or the Emperor Yang, although, while considering this comparison, we should keep in mind the idea that different people have different opinions, as with the proverbial blind men who touched different parts of an elephant and drew contradicting conclusions about the animal. Contrary to those emperors, our lord"s intention was never to enjoy the luxury life can provide. He had a kind and generous heart that would partake in the happiness and distress of all, even the humblest among his subjects. For these reasons, when he encountered a procession of ghosts in the large palace of Nijo, he was able to pa.s.s through them unscathed. And when the spirit of Secretary Tooru prowled every night the Kawaranoin Palace in Higashi-Sanjo, famed for the garden inspired by the marine landscape of Shiogama in the Michinoku province, the Lord reprimanded it, after which the spectre vanished forever. Of course, as soon as the people of Kyoto, young and old, men and women, heard Horikawa"s name, they would genuflect as if they had seen Buddha"s avatar.
One day, on his way home from the banquet of the Plum Blossoms, one of the oxen pulling his cart broke away and injured an old man who was pa.s.sing by. It is rumoured that the old man joined his hands to express his grat.i.tude for having been touched by the hoof of the Lord"s ox.
His life was full of many memorable facts, most of which should be bequeathed to posterity.
During a court banquet, the Emperor gave him thirty horses, all of them white...Once, when construction work on the Nagara Bridge was damaged, he offered his favourite boy attendants as human pillars to propitiate the G.o.ds...He had a carbuncle removed from his thigh by a Chinese bonze who had introduced the magical healing methods of a celebrated Chinese physician. If I should recount all the anecdotes, I would never finish. But among all these episodes, none surpa.s.ses in horror the story of the h.e.l.l scene painted on a screen that is now part of the Lord"s family treasure. Even the High Lord, who was usually impa.s.sive, seemed to have been utterly shocked by the events. No need to explain that we, his attendants, were frightened out of our wits. In more than twenty years pa.s.sed in the service of the Lord, I had never witnessed more horrid a spectacle.
But before telling you the story, I must introduce the painter called Yoshihide, the author of the h.e.l.l scene on the screen.
II.
Yoshihide! Some people may even remember him today. In his time he was considered the first among painters, an unrivalled artist. When what I am going to relate happened, he was already over fifty. At first sight, he appeared to be a short, cantankerous old man, all skin and bone. Each time he came to the Lord"s palace, he wore a clove-dyed hunting garment and a floppy eboshi on his head, but he had a vulgar appearance and his lips, too red for his age, had an unsettling b.e.s.t.i.a.l quality. I do not know for sure the cause of this red colour. Some said he had the habit of licking his paintbrush. Others, more slanderous, compared his appearance and gait to those of a monkey and nicknamed him Saruhide (Monkey-hide).
About this moniker, this is the story I heard. Our Monkeyhide had an only daughter, who was fifteen years old and served as a lady-in-waiting in the Lord"s palace. This girl, intelligent and observant beyond her age because she had lost her mother when she was little and had taken care of herself, was charming and very beautiful. For these reasons, she had won the good graces of Her Ladyship and all the waiting ladies.
Someone from the province of Tamba, west of Kyoto, had offered a well-trained monkey to the Lord. The Prince, the Lord"s young son, who was at the time in the age of mischievousness, named the monkey Yoshihide. The monkey"s gestures were amusing indeed, and everyone in the palace laughed at the animal. If this mockery had been all, things would not have been that bad for the monkey, but each time it climbed up the pine tree in the garden or soiled the mats in the Prince"s bedroom, everyone chased him, shouting, "Yoshihide, Yoshihide," to tease the poor beast.
One day, Yoshihide"s daughter, Yuzuki, pa.s.sed through the long corridor, carrying a letter attached to a winter-plum branch, when she saw the small monkey come from beyond the sliding door and run toward her. The monkey limped and seemed incapable of climbing up one of the palace columns as she used to do. The Prince ran after the monkey, a switch in his hand, and cried, "Stop, tangerine thief! Stop."
At this sight, the young woman stopped for an instant. Just then, the monkey flopped down at her feet, gripped the hem of her kimono and begged her with doleful cries. She could not refrain from feeling compa.s.sion. Holding the plum branch with one hand, she picked the monkey up with the other, her long mauve-coloured sleeve flying.
"Lord," she said in a smoothly agreeable voice, bowing. "Let me intercede in this monkey"s favour. It is only a beast. Prithee, forgive it."
But the Prince had been chasing the monkey with determination. He made a face and stamped his foot three times. "Why do you wish to protect it? This monkey is a tangerine thief, I tell you."
"It is a beast," she repeated. Then she took on a sad expression and dared say, "When I hear that name, Yoshihide, I have the impression my father is being reprimanded."
Hearing this remark, the Prince, arrogant or not, gave in. "I see. If you ask in the name of your father, I will pardon the monkey." Then he threw the switch down and went back through the sliding door whence he had come.
III.
From that day on, Yoshihide"s daughter and the monkey became fast friends. She tied a beautiful red ribbon around the animal"s neck, and also hung a tiny bell she had received from the young Princess. The monkey would leave her presence on no account. Once, Yuzuki had to stay in bed with a light cold, and the monkey watched over her, gnawing on its fingernails in apparent concern.
Now things took a peculiar turn. No one would mistreat the monkey any longer. On the contrary, they all began petting it. Not only did the Prince throw persimmons or chestnuts to the monkey, once His Highness became furious because some samurai had shot a kick at the little beast. This news reaching his ears, the Lord gave gracious orders that girl and monkey be brought before his presence. He must also have known why the girl had come to protect the beast.
"You are a good and dutiful daughter," the Lord said. "I am pleased with you." With these words, she received a scarlet hakama2 from the Lord.
The monkey mimicked the girl"s deference by raising the hem of the robe to its forehead, to the Lord"s immense amus.e.m.e.nt and pleasure. You can see that the Lord took the young woman into his good grace because he had been impressed with her filial piety, not because he admired her charms, as it was whispered. The rumours might have been justified on some grounds, but I will talk about such things later on. Suffice it to say that the Lord was not one to fall for as lowly a girl as a painter"s daughter, no matter how charming.
The girl withdrew from the Lord"s presence feeling highly honoured, but being naturally wise and intelligent, she did nothing to awake her fellow maids" jealousy. On the contrary, this honour won the ladies" favour for both herself and her monkey. Her Ladyship loved Yuzuki so much she kept the lady-in-waiting in her constant presence and brought her everywhere she went in her princely carriage.
Now let me set the girl aside for a while as I tell you about her father, Yoshihide. Although Yoshihide the monkey came to be loved by everyone, Yoshihide the painter continued to be hated by everyone. And they went on calling him "Monkeyhide" behind his back. The residents of the palace were not alone in this general dislike. The great priest of Yokawa, for example, would turn red in the face at the mere mention of Yoshihide"s name, as if he had seen a devil (as the rumour had it, Yoshihide had painted the priest in a humoristic scene depicting his conduct, but I know of no foundation proving the rumour true). At any rate, Yoshihide had a bad reputation everywhere. If one or two people did not speak ill of him, they were his fellow painters, who had seen his paintings but had never met him in person.
Not only had Yoshihide a vulgar aspect, he also had such shocking habits that everyone considered him a nuisance. For this reputation, he had no one but himself to blame.
IV.
He was avaricious, mean, cowardly, lazy and insatiable, but above all he was insolent and conceited. Always "I, the greatest painter in j.a.pan" was plastered across his forehead. His bad temperament manifested itself beyond his work, through a profound contempt for all customs and practices in life. According to an apprentice who had lived with him for a long time, one day a spirit was spouting a terrible oracle from the mouth of the famous medium of Higaki. Yoshihide, turning a deaf ear to the oracle, took the brush and ink he always carried and painted the medium"s frightening face. Our painter deemed the eventuality of being cursed by a spirit as serious as a child"s play.
Yoshihide did inconceivably sacrilegious things. In picturing the G.o.ddess Kichijoten, he copied the face of an abject courtesan, and in picturing the King of the Magical Science Fudo, the G.o.d that destroys all demons, he copied a thief"s figure, and so on, but if someone reprimanded him he answered impudently, "How strange. Do you really believe the deities Yoshihide painted will hit him with lightning?" When he spoke in this way many of his own disciples took leave of him in fearful antic.i.p.ation of terrible consequences. In other words, Yoshihide was arrogance incarnate he truly thought he was the smartest man under the sun.
No need to say how highly he esteemed himself as a painter. His paintings were so different in brushwork and colouring from those of other painters that many of his colleagues, who were on bad terms with him, considered him an impostor. Several legends affirmed that the famous paintings by the ancient masters like Kawanari, Kanaoka and others were so well rendered that one could smell the fragrance of the plum blossoms painted on the doors as the delicate scent wafted about in the moonlit nights, and one could also hear the courtiers painted on a screen play their flutes. But all the paintings by Yoshihide seemed to elicit disturbing feelings. One would cite the scene of the Goshushoji3, the cycle of births and deaths, hung on the portal of the Ryugai temple. Each time one pa.s.sed under the gate at night, one could hear the celestial creatures sigh and sob. Some said they could smell the stench of rotting corpses. As rumour had it, the waiting ladies whose likenesses Yoshihide had painted at the Lord"s command all fell ill and died within a few years. According to the slanderers, those events were proofs of Yoshihide"s dabbling in black arts. His paintings, the critics said, were cursed. Being an eccentric, Yoshihide took pride in these rumours.
Once, when the Lord told him, as a joke, "It would seem you are partial to ugliness," he replied with arrogance, a grin on that strangely red mouth of his, "That is true, my Lord. It is an unaccomplished artist who cannot perceive beauty in ugliness."
Notwithstanding his superiority over any other painter in the country, how could he make such a haughty reply to the Lord? His apprentices secretly nicknamed him "Chira-Eiju." Maybe you already know that Chira-Eiju was the name of a Tengu4, who came from China in older times.
Nevertheless, even the insufferable, shameless Yoshihide was not without feelings; one, single human emotion remained within him.
V.
Yoshihide adored his only daughter, the little lady-in-waiting, and his love for her bordered on madness. As I said before, she was sweet and devoted to her father. It seemed strange that, to this avaricious man, nothing was beautiful enough for his daughter: kimono, hairpins and expensive hairdressers. Although he never contributed his t.i.thes or mites to any Buddhist temple, he doted so much on her no expense was too extravagant for the girl"s adornment, although I do not know if this rumour is true. He adored her wildly and madly, and he never gave any thought to finding her a good husband. On the contrary, if anyone had courted her, he would have hired street a.s.sa.s.sins to get rid of the suitor in the dead of night. When the Lord expressed the wish of having the painter"s daughter as a lady-in-waiting, Yoshihide was so displeased he came to the palace with a sour face, even in the presence of the Lord himself. The rumour that the Lord had called the painter"s daughter to the palace because he was enamoured of her beauty might have originated in the displeasure the painter bore so openly. I am sure it was mere gossiping, while it was true that Yoshihide adored his daughter and strongly wished to have her at home with him.
One day, Yoshihide painted a cherub in the likeness of one of the Lord"s favourite boys. The Lord, pleased, said to the painter, "Yoshihide, I will grant any request of yours. So tell me what you wish."
"If it pleases Your Lordship," Yoshihide dared say. "Let my daughter be released from your service."
The painter"s reply would have been conceivable if he had answered another lord, but who would have imagined Yoshihide would be so presumptuous as to ask of the Lord Horikawa to let go of his favourite lady-in-waiting, even though Yoshihide loved his daughter so much?
Even though the Lord was very indulgent, he seemed offended. He stared at the painter for a moment, and then he uttered, "No. I can"t grant that," and left on the spot.
The two of them found themselves in the same situation four or five times. Thinking back on it, I can recall that the Lord"s gaze became ever colder when he looked at the painter. And the painter"s daughter wept when she was alone in her room, covering her face with the sleeve of her kimono. Thereafter the rumour spread all the more that the Lord was enamoured of the girl.
Some say that the idea of having the scene from h.e.l.l painted on the screen originated in the girl"s refusal to comply with the Lord"s wishes. No. It was only gossip. I am sure of it.
In our opinion, the Lord did not dismiss the girl because he took pity on her and preferred to let her live in ease and comfort rather than send her back to that misanthropic father of hers. It was certain that the Lord felt affection for such a sweet-tempered girl, but to think His Lordship had amorous motives was a farfetched distortion of truth. No, I dare say it was a perfectly unfounded lie.
Because of the painter"s insistence on having his daughter back, His Lordship had come to look upon Yoshihide with considerable disfavour. Despite the Lord"s feelings about the painter, one day he summoned him to the palace and commanded him to paint a scene from h.e.l.l on a screen.
VI.
As I evoke the screen, I have the impression of seeing that terrifying scene before my eyes. The scene painted by Yoshihide was quite different from those of other artists, first of all because of its composition. The Ten Kings of h.e.l.l and their households were confined to a corner, while all the rest consisted of wild flames roiling around the Mountain of Swords and the Forest of Spears, which seemed ready to take fire as well. Save for the blue and yellow of the Chinese-styled costumes worn by the governors of h.e.l.l, which stood out here and there, everything else was ablaze, tongues of fires occupying all the s.p.a.ce, hooked wheels dancing in fury, black smoke drawn with splattered ink and sparks shooting up, done in gold smeared and mingled with soot.
These scene would have sufficed to scare the human eye, but one could also see other personages writhing in agony among the flames. None of these characters ever appeared in the representations of h.e.l.l painted by other artists. Yoshihide had depicted every social cla.s.s, from the n.o.ble and the dignitary to the beggar and the outcast: mandarins in formal costume, charming young ladies-in-waiting in elaborate five-pleat dresses, bonzes with rosaries hanging from their necks, vagrant clerics wearing high-wedged clogs, very young handmaids in long, clinging kimonos, fortune-tellers in the robes of Shinto priests, holding a holy stick...I would never have the time to describe each of them. These people, tormented by the Gozumezu5, fled in all directions among fire and smoke, like so many leaves scattered by the tempest. The woman who curled up like a spider, her hair caught in a fork, had probably been a shrine medium or a priestess. The man with the halberd sticking out of his heart, upside down like a vampire bat, must have been a young province governor, or something like it. And the uncountable others, flogged with iron whips, crushed under a rock a thousand men could barely move, pecked by weird birds or slashed open by the maws of a poisonous dragon. The punishments were as numerous as the sinners.
One of these horrors, however, stood out in its own horrifying right, surpa.s.sing all the rest.
A carriage pulled by oxen descended from above, grazing the tops of the sword trees, which had branches like animal fangs spitting bodies of dead souls. In the carriage, with its bamboo blinds blown upward by the blast of h.e.l.l, a court lady was visible, as splendidly dressed as an empress or an imperial concubine, long black hair streaming and white neck bent backward. Among the flames, the lady writhed in agony. This rendering of a court lady writhing in a flame-wreathed carriage conveyed all the terror of h.e.l.l. The frightening intensity of the scene was concentrated on this single personage. It was such an excellent masterpiece the spectator had the impression of hearing desperate screams.
To paint that horrible scene, something terrible must have befallen the artist. Otherwise, how could even a painter as great as Yoshihide depict the horror of h.e.l.l in such a vivid manner? He must have traded his life to be able to paint that screen. Indeed, the h.e.l.l Yoshihide painted was the very h.e.l.l to which he had condemned himself.
I am afraid that in my hurry to describe this strange screen, I have lost the thread of my story. So I will return to the moment when Yoshihide received the order to paint the picture of h.e.l.l by the Lord.
VII.
For five or six months, Yoshihide absorbed himself in the painting of the screen, without making the briefest courtesy call at the palace. It was strange that, despite his love for his daughter, not once had he the thought of seeing her. According to an apprentice, each time he started painting he became like a man possessed by a fox. In fact, the rumour had it that Yoshihide had gained fame and reputation because he had sworn himself to the vulpine G.o.d of Good Fortune.
"For proof," some said, "s.n.a.t.c.h a peek at him while he is painting and you will see the spirits of foxes thronging around him."
Once he had picked up his brush, he forgot everything but his work. He confined himself to his study and never came out to see the sun. Now that he was painting the screen, his level of inspiration soared.
Shut up in his study with the blinds always drawn, he would mix his secret melanges of colours, and had his apprentices dress up in gala costumes or in poor clothes before painting them with great care in the lamp"s light.
These oddities were usual with him. It would not have taken that special h.e.l.l scene to drive him to such extreme eccentricities. For instance, when he painted that scene from the Goshushoji, the Five Phases of the Transmigration of Souls, he once came across rotting corpses in the street; he sat down in front of them and copied faces and hands, down to the single hairs, while normal people averted their eyes.
Concerning the state of inspiration in which he painted that scene from h.e.l.l, no one was ever able to imagine it. I do not have the time to give you all the particulars and I will tell you only the notable moments.
While one of his disciples was mixing colours, Yoshihide said abruptly. "I wish to rest for a while. I"ve had some bad dreams lately."
"You have, master?" the apprentice said, without interrupting his work, for Yoshihide"s wish for rest was nothing unusual.
But then the master asked in humble tones, "Could you sit at my bedside while I"m resting?"
Even though the apprentice did not understand why the master was so worried about his dreams, the request was reasonable, and he said, "Very well, sir." To which the master, sounding troubled, added with some hesitation, "Come into my inner room. Don"t let anyone come inside while I"m sleeping."
The apprentice remarked that the room in which his master was working for the "inner room" meant his study had the shutters drawn as if it were night, and the screen with the scene sketched in charcoal stood open in the dim light, taking up all the s.p.a.ce.
The artist went to sleep with his arm under his head, as if a great fatigue had descended on him, but after half an hour a terrifying noise came to the apprentice"s ear.
VIII.
At first it was a voice that spoke in an incomprehensible way, but little by little the words broke up to resemble the moans of a drowning man trying to speak underwater.